Part Five

Part Five

Once again I sat in the dust outside the podulator, my back
against the cold brick wall, idly jabbing at the dirt with a
broken stick. Muffled voices came from within, accompanied by
irritable protestations and the occasional high-pitched scream.
Janet and Cathy were attempting to bandage the Professor’s
nose. Good luck to ‘em. I had offered to help, but the
Professor had refused my assistance, explaining, very calmly,
that it might be better for all concerned if I was to go and fuck
myself. Well, I had hit him with my breakfast, so I suppose he
had a perfect right to be a little miffed.

And so I sat and waited, scrabbling around lazily in the dust
and wondering how the hell I had managed to find myself here.
More to the point, where was here? The other three were still
insistent that we were on some alien world, but in spite of all
that I had seen, I was reluctant to believe them. This dirt
beneath me seemed like ordinary dirt. These rocks and twigs
seemed like ordinary rocks and twigs. I noticed a little bug
weaving towards me - a millipede or a centipede, or something
like that. An ordinary little bug. It stopped before me, raised
its hat and smiled. Then it said something in a bizarre alien
tongue and carried on its merry way, whistling as it went.

I Jumped to my feet and stamped on the little bastard before
it could get away. Just an ordinary little bug.

“Making new friends?” the Professor asked me in
muffled tones as he emerged from the Podulator, Janet and Cathy
in his wake. I was amused to see that his nose was in a splint,
but I tried not to grin too broadly.

“It looked at me funny,” I responded in a deadpan
voice. The Professor just huffed and walked past me, and stood
staring out across the forest. “Okay,” I said.
“So what do we do now?”

“Let’s play strip poker?” Janet
suggested.

I looked at her with some distaste. “Maybe not,” I
replied.

“Anyone fancy a game of table tennis?” said Cathy
brightly.

“Table...?” I shook my head. “No, no, no -
what I mean is, what are we going to do about exploring this
place?” I turned to the Professor. “Or are you
content to just sulk?”

The Professor suddenly snapped to attention.
“Sulk!” he said. He turned sharply on his heel and
marched up to me, stopping barely inches from my face. I looked
deep into his bloodshot eyes and examined every blackhead on the
end of his greasy nose in minute detail. When he opened his mouth
to speak I was hit by a sudden hot blast of pure cheese and onion
that made my eyes water and my stomach churn. “No time like
the present,” he said. “Let’s go.”

With some difficulty I tore my eyes away from him.
“Right,” I said purposefully, “well I suggest
we head off in this direction. The going seems to be
easier.” I began to lead the way, but he roughly grabbed me
by the collar and swung me around. “What the -”

“Not so fast, you young idiot,” he snapped.
“An expedition like this requires preparation. You
don’t just go marching off into God-knows-what?”

“So, wha -?”

“So, change into this wetsuit and put a plastic bag on
your head,” the Professor said smartly, producing the
aforementioned items from behind his back.

I’ll say this for Professor Mendes: he can be a
persuasive old boiler when he wants to be. I know this from
experience, for several minutes later I emerged from the
Podulator ready to begin our excursion, clad in a wetsuit and
wearing a Woolworth’s carrier bag over my head. Apparently
the bag would help to filter out any pockets of noxious gas we
might pass through on our journey, and the wetsuit would protect
me from the harmful rays of the alien sun. Something like that,
anyway. Of course, now I come to think about it, the whole thing
does seem a little suspicious, but at the time I thought it
seemed perfectly reasonable. Like I said, the Prof. could be very
persuasive.

“Right then!” the old git announced brightly.
“Are we all set?”

“Well, I’ve got the sandwiches,” replied
Cathy.

“And I’ve got the thermos,” said Janet.

“Then off we go,” said the Professor.

“Err, Professor,” I called out. I was beginning to
have my doubts about all this. “Erm, I just,
err...”

“Oh what is it, you insufferable little tit!” the
Professor snapped.

“It’s this bag,” I said. “I know
there’s a very good reason why I have to wear it.
It’s just that it’s kind of, erm...
awkward.”

“Awkward!” replied the Prof. “Yeah, well I
dare say it is. Of course, you could take it off, but when the
sunlight shrivels your head to the size of a walnut, you might
find that kind of awkward as well. But if you want to take it
off, then I’m not stopping you. On your own head be it - or
not, as would seem to be the case.”

“Holes?” the Professor said, and something in his
voice seemed to suggest that the concept was entirely alien to
him.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just that I
can’t see out.”

“Oh, I get it,” the Professor said. “You
want to see out.”

“Well, it would be nice,” I replied.

“And what about when giant eagles come and peck your
eyes out?” the Professor asked. “How much would you
be able to see then? Or what about if a giant squid attacks and
sucks your eyeballs through your nose?”

“Is that really likely?”

“Happened once to my sister,” Janet chipped
in.

“But of course, if you’re happy to take that
chance…” the Professor said, and his voice tailed
off into an ominous void.

“No, no, I’m sure everything will be all
right,” I returned hastily.

“She was in the supermarket,” Janet continued,
oblivious to the fact that no one was listening to her.
“She had just rounded the corner of the freezer section
when WHACK! Giant squid right in the face. She didn’t stand
a chance.”

“Very well then,” the Professor said, and although
I couldn’t see his face, I could tell from the tone of his
voice that he must be wearing an expression of smug satisfaction.
“If everybody’s happy, I think we can
begin.”

And so stumbling and uncertain, I was led down into the
forest, with nothing more to guide me than the small crescent of
earth visible at my feet, an occasional prod from one of my
companions and the sound of Janet’s inane gabbling drifting
back to me on the wind.

“Well that’s your squid for you though,
isn’t it?” she was saying. “Turn your back on
them for one minute and they suck out your eyeballs and make off
with your tinned peas… Bastards.”

I didn’t have an easy time of it in the forest. I
don’t know if you have ever tried to cover any distance
overland in a wetsuit and a plastic bag, but I can tell you from
experience that it’s no picnic. The flippers and snorkel
didn’t help matters much either. Neither was I given much
assistance by Professor Mendes, who had made it his personal
responsibility to guide me through the tangled undergrowth.

“Mind that rock,” he would say momentarily too
late as I stumbled and crashed to the forest floor. “Watch
out for that branch there,” he would chirp happily, shortly
after I had smashed my face in on an overhanging bough. I was
beginning to think that there was something very wrong with this
situation; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I
was starting to suspect that the Prof. was having a joke at my
expense, a suspicion that was further fuelled by his unsuccessful
attempts to stifle his giggles after each of my many mishaps.

“Professor?” I broached, after about twenty
minutes of this treatment.

“Hmm?” he replied languidly.

“I was just wondering ... oof!”

“Oh, mind that branch, Dickington,” said the
Professor as I picked myself off the floor.

“Perhaps,” I suggested bitterly, “you could
warn me of any impending danger before I actually walk into the
obstacle?”

“That’s an interesting notion,” the
Professor said in a jolly fashion. “I’ll bear it in
mind.”

I grunted in reply and trudged onwards. Then suddenly
something occurred to me. There had been something bugging me all
along, and I finally realised what it was.
“Professor!” I called out.

“Oh what is it now!” he snapped. “Why all
these insufferable questions?”

“Professor!” I repeated, more emphatically. I
wasn’t to be put off. “Tell me this: how are you able
to guide me when - “

I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Abruptly the ground
fell away from me and I suddenly found myself spinning and
rattling down a steep slope, accompanied by an avalanche of rocks
and earth. The air was full of dust, and sharp stones tore at my
skin and clothes as I tumbled over and over and over. “Ooh,
careful of that ravine,” I heard Professor Mendes’
hollow voice shout after me, followed by gales of raucous
laughter.

Then suddenly my journey stopped. My head was spinning and I
could still hear the wind rushing past my ears, but I was quite
certain that I had come to a halt. I jumped unsteadily to my
feet, ripped the bag angrily from my head and found myself
looking up at an awesome, shale-strewn slope. Janet, Cathy and
the Professor were standing at the top, the latter almost doubled
up with laughter. I was dismayed to note that the three of them
were attired quite normally – no wetsuits, no snorkels, and
certainly no tatty carrier bags pulled over their heads,

“Hey!” I shouted angrily. I paused to brush the
dust from my hair and blow the gravel from my nose. “How
come you’re not taking the same precautions as
me?”

The Professor stilled his laughter and wiped a tear from his
eye. “A valid question, young man,” he replied with
easy confidence, a broad grin stretching from ear to ear.
“The fact is that the atmosphere doesn’t affect us in
the same way it does you.”

“Why not?” I demanded indignantly, although I knew
deep down that I was not going to like the answer.

“Because we’re not as gullible as you,” said
the Professor simply and then gave way to further waves of
laughter and guffaws. In fact, he was so overcome with hilarity,
I am pleased to recount, that he quite lost his footing and
tumbled over the edge of the precipice. Now it was my turn to
laugh as I watched him ricocheting down the slope like a
discarded football, emitting squeals and wails with each rock he
bounced from. Then the danger of my own situation suddenly struck
home as I realised that he was heading straight towards me. I
stood aside at the last moment and watched him slide to a halt,
face first, beside me.

“Nice of you to drop in,” I said.

“I don’t believe you just said that,” he
groaned as he raised himself up with some difficulty.

“Well, it lightens the mood,” I said with a
shrug.

He kicked me in the shin out of spite, then pointed back up
the slope down which we had both so hastily descended. “Now
look what you’ve done!” he barked. “How are we
going to get back up there?”

I looked. It was obviously too steep to climb, but the
Professor nevertheless felt it necessary to demonstrate the
difficulty by attempting to scramble up on his hands and knees.
For a brief moment he was a flurry of flailing limbs and furious
curses, and to his credit he managed to climb about four feet
before giving up and sliding back down again on his arse. It was
a splendidly comical sight and I enjoyed it immensely.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” I said with a
shrug. “We can just continue along the floor of the
ravine.”

“And leave Cathy and Janet to fend for themselves up
there?” the Professor said.

I looked up to the two women silhouetted on the lip of the
ravine, and waved out of courtesy. Cathy obviously mistook my
gesture for a signal that it was ‘her turn’ and
hurled herself headfirst off the edge. With a wail of delight she
hurtled down the slope at terrifying speed and buried herself in
a small mound of earth to my left.

Grabbing a leg each, the Professor and I pulled her out,
whereupon she shook the dirt from her ears and cried excitedly,
“Again! Again!”

We sat her down on a rock, gave her a biscuit and reassessed
our predicament. “Okay then,” I said, “so the
three of us can just continue along the floor of the
ravine.”

“And leave Janet to fend for herself up there?”
said the Professor. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah,
okay then… No, no, no – what am I thinking? We
can’t leave the poor woman up there. She may be an
irritating bitch, but we have to look out for one
another.”

“Very well,” I sighed, and then I called up to
Janet. “You’re going to have to lower yourself down
gently, Janet,” I shouted.

She shouted something back, but she was too high up for me to
make it out.

“I said you’ll have to join us down here,
Janet,” I called again.

Once more I heard her brief reply, but could not make out the
words.

“There’s nothing to it, Janet,” I tried to
reassure her. “The slope looks worse than it really is.
Just take it steady and you’ll have no problem.”

She seemed very, very nervous and actually took a step back
from the edge. Once more I heard her call out, but the words were
snatched away by the wind. “What’s wrong with
her?” I muttered. “What’s she
saying?”

“I think her actual words were ‘get
stuffed’,” the Professor informed me. “Or
something along those lines, anyway. It’s no good,
Dickbury. If we’re going to get her down, we’ll have
to help her.”

“Fair enough,” I replied, found a small, cricket
ball-sized rock on the ground, and hurled it with all my might.
It struck Janet a glancing blow to the temple. She staggered,
backwards at first, then to the left, then a couple of paces to
the right, and finally she pitched forward over the edge of the
ravine. She was with us within the space of five seconds.

“Very well,” I said with some satisfaction.
“So now the four of us can just continue along the floor of
the ravine.”

“Yes!” said the Professor.

“Err, no,” said Janet, climbing unsteadily to her
feet and pointing behind us. “I think that thing might have
something to say about that.”

The Professor and I turned in unison and our mouths fell open
in horror. Perched squarely on the trail before us was the most
hideous thing I had ever seen. As tall as a man, if not taller,
it appeared to be a huge amorphous, gelatinous sack, with
terrible black eyes, a formless slit for a mouth and stubby
feelers atop its head, swinging and bobbing in constant motion.
It’s body continued for some distance behind it, and
appeared to be surmounted with some kind of armoured
protuberance, and as it moved slowly and steadily towards us, its
whole frame seemed to undulate and wobble. It was truly
disgusting, and yet the really disturbing thing was that it
seemed somehow familiar.

“What the hell is that?” breathed the Professor,
and I was pleased to detect that he was as mortified as I
was.

“I don’t know,” I replied in hushed, almost
reverent tones. “But I think I once went out with its
sister.”